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Today is my daughter’s 11th birthday. On her 10th, I had no idea what was in store for us, the treacherous roads that we would travel to make it to this day. But here we are, a new year, a new adventure. We hope for a safer one, that’s for sure.

Last week, I made an off-hand remark on Facebook about finally taking my daughter to see The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal. We are huge Harry Potter fans but we’ve held off on going because it’s a pretty big expense and we don’t have a lot of money laying around to use for the fun kind of big expenses. But it’s her birthday and it seemed like the right time to get those tickets. And my intention was to go and buy them the next day after I wrote that post, but I didn’t because, quite frankly, I was planning on partially paying for the tickets with money harvested from the Change Bucket, and I wasn’t able to get to the bank to turn the change into much more socially acceptable bills. (Does everyone have a world’s heaviest bucket of change at home?) I think there’s more than $100 in there and that would make a nice, painless dent in the ticket price. So, Monday, today, was the day I was doing the bank run and then going to AAA to buy our golden tickets to Harry’s world.

But that little Facebook status I mentioned prompted one of my friends to contact another friend who works at Universal, right in Harry Potter’s world. That friend talked to some of her co-workers, and they all shared the story of the brave little girl who lived… just like Harry.

Those friends got together to make magic for that girl. My girl.

So, I am now planning several trips to Universal on comp passes that belong to hardworking cast members who make magic come to life every day for Harry Potter fans. People who count on those comp passes for their own friends and family donated them to a girl who has had a hard time and who has wished and wanted and saved to see their world for more than a year. People I don’t know but will hopefully get to meet to say “Thank you!”

When I told my daughter about the gift, it took her a few moments to process. As understanding dawned and she realized that many different people completely unknown to her got together to give her this gift, she cried. She felt the magic. She felt the love. I felt it all too.

It reminded me that we all have magic within us. We have the power to love and to share that love with not only family but also with friends and strangers. It’s love, limitless love, that makes magic. And the completely selfless love shown to people you don’t even know might be the most magical of all.

What a shame it would be to go through life a muggle, missing out on sharing that magic.

Soon my family will be immersed in the wizarding world, and our trip will be all the more magical because of the love that got us there.